1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Ethernet networks and, more particularly, to a system and method for enabling energy efficient Ethernet networks with time-sensitive protocols.
2. Introduction
Energy costs continue to escalate in a trend that has accelerated in recent years. Such being the case, various industries have become increasingly sensitive to the impact of those rising costs. One area that has drawn increasing scrutiny is the IT infrastructure. Many companies are now looking at their IT systems' power usage to determine whether the energy costs can be reduced. For this reason, an industry focus on energy efficient networks (IEEE 802.3az) has arisen to address the rising costs of IT equipment usage as a whole (i.e., PCs, displays, printers, switches, servers, network equipment, etc.).
In designing an energy efficient solution, one of the considerations is network link utilization. For example, many network links are typically in an idle state between sporadic bursts of data traffic. An additional consideration for an energy efficient solution is the extent to which the traffic is sensitive to buffering and latency. For example, some traffic patterns (e.g., HPC cluster or high-end 24-hr data center) are very sensitive to latency such that buffering would be problematic.
The application itself can also be a significant consideration. For example, one level of analysis can consider whether the application is a home network, service provider, enterprise, or a data center. The analysis can go deeper still by examining scenarios such as the type of network element within a given application. For example, the analysis can consider whether it is a gateway or a switch in a home network, or can consider whether it is a wiring closet or aggregation point in an enterprise network. The particular use of the network element can also be considered, such as whether it is an audio-video bridging switch for the home running a streaming application.